Young carer tells how support from charity helped her make new friends and stop feeling isolated
With a mum who had been sick since before she was born, Lanarkshire schoolgirl Katie Hughes was, at the age of just nine, responsible for preparing and cooking all evening meals.
When Katie was in Primary 5, her mum’s condition deteriorated and, by the time she’d reached high school, she’d be making repeated calls home every day to make sure her mum was coping without her.
And, on arriving home after classes, Katie would busy herself in the kitchen to make nutritious meals and ensure her mum was eating properly.
“I first came into contact with Action for Children when I was 10,” explained Katie, now a 16-year-old S5 pupil at Cardinal Newman High School.
“I remember my mum told me I was starting this new group and I didn’t want to go because it was taking me away from her.”
Although shy and nervous at first, the caring team at charity Action for Children soon helped Katie to settle.
“On the first day, I remember the young carers all sat down in a circle. We introduced ourselves and talked about who we cared for,” she said.
“I made friends with the other young carers there and, even though some of them have moved on, we’re still in touch.
“It was really helpful to be around other young people who were going through the same thing as me, because there wasn’t really anyone in school I could talk to about it.
“At that time in my life, I had never met someone like me who had a caring role. It was the first time I met other people my age who were doing the same stuff as me.
“I was going, knowing it wasn’t just me going through it and it helped knowing I had other people to talk to who understood.
“Jackie and Josh were two of my closest friends. They were in my first group and we were all together for a few years. They really helped me a lot.”
Had she not had Action for Children at her back when she started secondary school, Katie, of Uddingston, says she’d have felt isolated.
“Going along to Young Carers helped take that worry away, and the Action for Children staff would come into the school to help,” she said.
“I’m planning on staying on until the end of S6. I’m doing three Highers – drama, history and English – and two Nat 5s: child care and maths. I want to work for Action for Children Young Carers now because of how much they’ve helped me. I’ve thought about being a nursery teacher at some point, so I’m going to do a modern apprenticeship in nursery teaching. That’ll give me a qualification and I can, hopefully, start working with Action for Children Young Carers.”
With the help of having the discipline of exercising the family’s two-year-old Border Collie, Bran, Katie has seen an improvement
Campaigner Carers Trust CEO Kirsty Mchugh in her mum’s health. She explained: “She started working again a few weeks ago, so I’m still getting used to it,.
“If I see her tired, I start to worry her health is declining again, but it’s just a case of her building up her energy again.”
Of Action for Children, Katie said:
“It was last year when it was getting close to me leaving the programme that I started thinking about how much they had helped me.
“I want to help other kids whose parents have an illness, too.”